The 2020-2021 Film Journal Entry #28: "Dune (2021)"

2020-2021 Film Journal Entry #28

by Xavier E. Palacios

"Dune (2021)"

3.5 out of 5

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Premise: Adapting half of Frank Herbert's titular novel set in humanity's vastly distant future, House Atreides obeys Imperial command to rule the fief of the planet Arrakis, "Dune", a hostile desert world. There, the noble Duke Leto (Oscar Issac), his concubine beloved Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), their son, Paul (Timothée Chalamet), who is surrounded by a great and terrible purpose, and their loyal servants will manage the harvest and distribution of the spice "melange": a powerful substance only native to this wasteland that is the economic life source of this interstellar civilization. However, this endowment is a trap by the Atreides' rivals, the vicious House Harkonnen, in a traitorous plot to destroy Paul's family. The only hope for survival is to forge an alliance with the Fremen, the deep-desert people who are nearly unstoppable warriors. Meanwhile, Paul's psychic abilities, given by his mother of the mysterious Bene Gesserit sisterhood, are enhanced by the spice, shaping him into Dune's artificial messiah, the "Lisan Al-Gaib", and beginning the universe's path towards a new, bloody age. Definitively imperfect, this noble recreation of a literary classic is worthy of admirable praise.

"PG-13"

My Thoughts

Part 1: "Leaving friends is a sadness. A place is just a place."

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer". So begins a mantra of the Bene Gesserit, an order with astonishing abilities of perception and manipulation. The famous refrain concludes as, "I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me . . . Where the fear is gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain." Long have I repeated these words from Frank Herbert's enduring work for survival and bravery during dark times, especially in high school. The phrase is a gift given by my father who introduced me to this story, his favorite book, when I was about twelve years old. The age when all the brightness of my childhood would be blighted.

Oh, yes, I am talking about Dune.

At that age, I must have come across my father's extended edition of the 2000 mini-series from the Sci-Fi Channel, maybe remembering the vaguest image of a young man and his companion fleeing a Sandworm. My earliest memory of Dune. I asked him about the story. He told me fragments of the setting during errand drives in his old, white Saturn. Of the shields, invisible barriers around individuals and objects so impenetrable their one weakness is slow-moving objects, giving birth to a new style of warfare. Of the rivalries between noble Houses in a very foreign yet very human, intricate interstellar society. Soon after, I saw that mini-series.

I was astounded. There are few times I have been momentously overwhelmed by a sense of awe and wonder for a completely new part of the world. Finding Dune was one of those times. I had never seen a story with such a unique universe and compelling characters in a political, scientific, religious, critiquing, and thrilling drama both classical and fresh. The mini-series adaptation is flawed and, twenty-one years later, shows its low-budget age, but the work is nonetheless worthily nostalgic and a strong adaptation of Herbert's text. Here was my first foray into Dune, a story that has since captured my imagination since the last time my life was hopeful.

Over the many years, I explored the complex books, reading several passages, and researching their appendix content. I was utterly, and positively, baffled by where Herbert took the story next in his sequels. I quoted the story often in discussion of contemporary events and history; during the great social unrest of 2020, I combined a term from the story with a quote from Green Day's song, "Are We the Waiting?", to express my frustration: The [Lisan Al-Gaib] is a lie. In recent reflection, considering the more devious settings of my youth, I am thankful so many childhood stories taught me the realities of the socio-political world I would inherit. Dune, arriving at my childhood's end, was such a tale.